http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/09/07/saints-nfl-suspensions-appeal.ap/ Appeals panel overturns Saints player suspensions A three-member appeals panel has overturned the player suspensions in the Saints bounty case, according to a source familiar with the ruling. The panel overturned a ruling by NFL system arbiter Stephen Burbank that commissioner Rodger Goodell was within his powers under the collective bargaining agreement to suspend four players for their alleged roles in a pay to injure system. According to source, the suspensions are voided immediately, howevever the commissioner can reconsider discipline if -- and only if -- there is evidence of intent to injure beyond just a performance pool.
This was expected..actually the federal judge was expected to do this so late on the Friday afternoon before the first game that the NFL would not have time to appeal it. Actually the can't appeal it but the can sue to overturn it which is what the players were doing to begin with. I think this is far from over though.
So happy to see Goodell getting set straight. The way the NFL appeal system is set up is a damn joke.
It's a technicality. Goodell can suspend them again tomorrow if he wants, he just has to phrase things slightly differently.
A) Do we actually know the players did anything at all? Czar Goodell's refused to make the evidence public or even tell the players themselves of the evidence against them B) Even if they did, it's hardly fair to punish them retroactively when players and teams have had bounties for decades and there was no rule on the books when the players supposedly did whatever they did. Sean Payton and Gregg Williams are another story, the NFL supposedly did tell them to knock it off and they have no recourse for appeal. C) If you are going to punish management, you're saying they sanctioned this. So if management sanctioned it, how can you 'also' punish players this severely for only doing what their employers told them to do? It's either one or the other.
how in the world can you interpret anyone's position in this thread as meaning that they think they are innocent? this issue has always been about whether Goodell had the authority to suspend the players and had proven that they intended to injure opponents, not whether they were innocent of the accusations.
Read the comments again and tell me how you can't. The fact it was overruled on a technicality which the panel itself said made their decision cumbersome is no reason to gloat about these people being reinstated.
This is interesting if you read it through..basically if the teams reinstate these guys their salary for the year is guaranteed even though they may get suspended again tomorrow. Also if they are reinstated then two current players will have to be cut meaning their salary isn't guaranteed. How do you think they are going to feel? http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8...anthony-hargrove-overturned-arbitration-panel
I don't see anything in these posts that even remotely intimate that they think the player's are innocent: even this one doesn't state anything about the player's being innocent, just that he is glad they can play. that could be because he thinks their suspensions were bullshit because they didn't get a fair shake at defending themselves, not that they were innocent. now how can you find anything in these posts that even resembles a defense of the players actions rather than an indictment of Goodell's.
Maybe I am just reading them differently..I see them as good, a couple of murderers get let out of jail but the warden has to eat crow. Why would that ever be a good thing unless you think they are innocent? Not the best lesson to teach.
